


Remember That Time You Snuck Into My Bed?

by kikabennet



Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: Cute Kids, F/M, kid usnavi, kid vanessa, thisstableground
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-18
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-07-13 19:47:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16024751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikabennet/pseuds/kikabennet
Summary: Nine-year old Vanessa is scared during a blackout and doesn't know where to go. She also doesn't know how she winds up in Usnavi's bed. They share secrets.





	Remember That Time You Snuck Into My Bed?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thisstableground](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/gifts).



> Please, please PLEASE read thisstableground's ITH work. You won't be disappointed. This is for her because she's always writing such wonderful things. I wanted to write something for her, but I hope everyone enjoys!

Vanessa is huddled up on the sofa in the big purple blanket that's been in the apartment since before she was born. The movie is about ghosts and haunted houses and Mama told her not to turn on the TV before she left for her night job (she always tells Vanessa that stocking pays good money and she's sorry it's at night) but it's Friday and Halloween is tomorrow and she's not sleepy.

When the movie finally goes over, Vanessa is frozen. The credits roll halfway before it splits into two screens-half movie credits, half commercial for the next horror flick. She turns the television off with the clicker and wiggles her toes inside of the blanket. She has to pee, but the hallway is dark and she can't see around the corner. What if there are ghosts in the hallway? Ghosts that wail in the night like the ghost in that movie? What if the ghost scratches her as she walks by like the ghost in that movie did to that kid? She shudders, remembering the scene where his mother had raised his pajama top to see three deep gashes. Vanessa tucks her own pajama top into her pajama pants. 

She really, really has to pee now and ghost or no ghost, she drops the blanket to the floor and sprints to the bathroom. When she's done, she leaves the bathroom light on, turns on the hall light, her bedroom light, Mama's bedroom light, and the lamp beside her bed. She climbs onto her bed and picks up an old stuffed animal from the floor. It's a stuffed bear, soft but dusty. Dad gave her the bear two birthdays ago. The bear has paws and the paws have toes. She always wondered where Dad found a bear with toes. 

The train is noisy outside and Vanessa tries to focus on that instead of the little creaks and stirs all over the apartment, which suddenly seem louder than normal. Her mother told her that old buildings  _settle_ (whatever that means) and those are the noises they hear at night in the apartment. She climbs under the covers and tells herself that Mama will be home at seven am. She'll be asleep, but when she wakes up, Mama will be getting ready for her five-hour nap. She'll feel better just knowing Mama is in the apartment. Maybe she'll climb in bed with her and take a little nap too. 

Vanessa tries to make patterns in the texture of the ceiling, but she keeps thinking of ghost arms coming down and reaching for her. She is too scared to get up to close her closet door all the way in case those arms reach out and pull her in. Once there was an opossum in her closet. That was frightening enough. 

She thinks about calling Nina, but it's after ten and Nina has a ten o'clock bedtime. Unlike Vanessa, Nina's parents are strict. There are certain foods they don't let her eat and she has to say 'yes, ma'am' and 'yes, sir' to all adults-even her parents. They won't even let her spend the night away from home. Vanessa always has to sleep over at  _her_ house even though they would have a lot more fun over here. Nina's parents make her sleep with the door open so they can't even giggle and talk after the lights are out. 

A half shriek she doesn't even know she was capable of making escapes her mouth as she hears a loud creak somewhere in the hall. She covers herself under the blankets. It's dark. It's extra dark. 

"AW SHIT!" She hears someone yell outside down below. "FUCKIN' BLACKOUT, MAN."

Oh no.

OH NO.

There's been talk of rolling blackouts lately. It's on the news and her teachers talk about it sometimes, but Vanessa's never experienced one. She removes the covers and now everything is super dark. In her nightstand drawer is an industrial camping flashlight Nina got for her when she went camping with Nina and her parents last summer. She turns it on and jumps. There's pounding at the front door.

"EY! JOSE!" A voice booms. "YOU IN THERE, MAN?"

Vanessa doesn't know who Jose is, but she's scared. She imagines the man on the other side of the front door is gigantic and hairy with tattoos. She's seen the type. They always tug at her ponytail or call her 'Mami' which she  _hates._

She holds her breath as she makes her way to her closet and flings the door open, shining it around quickly. Nothing but clothes and the old poster board she'd designed with glue and glitter as Nina's campaign manager for junior class president. Nina had been the only third grader to run. She'd lost, of course, because a fifth grader named Jasmine Morrow who was a cheerleader also ran.

Vanessa strips out of her pajamas and changes into some leggings, sneakers, t-shirt, and sweater. She pulls her hair into a ponytail, takes her flashlight, and climbs out the window and down the fire escape. Mama always scolds her about the fire escape, but Vanessa is too scared to worry about that now. She hurries down as fast as she can until she's at the bottom. 

And then it hits her.

Where is she going?

Mr. Rosario might be annoyed if she shows up this late. He'll make her call Mama and Mama will tell him to take her home. She has other friends at school, but not the kind she sees  _outside_ of school. Plus, Berenice is kind of being a brat right now tellin' everyone that Vanessa likes Marcus, and Vanessa doesn't care about Marcus or any other boys. She was just nice to him at recess and let him piggy back her across the playground when he thought he'd damaged her foot with a football. 

Mama says men don't really care about women. She says that men are programmed to like them for a little while, but don't get attached. She told Vanessa that's why she never remarried when Vanessa asked. 

It makes Vanessa said to know this. She wonders why females even bother. Make themselves all pretty for guys just to be dropped later like yesterday's toy. Vanessa took a vow to never fall in love with a man. She'll play with boys, but she ain't kissin' 'em. 

Nina says that  _her_ mother said that's not true. She and Mr. Rosario love each other very much and they haven't always seen eye to eye, but they never walk away, even in anger, without saying 'I love you'. 

It's Usnavi's parents that really make Vanessa wonder. The De La Vegas remind Vanessa of a family you'd see on TV. They're always happy and smiling and hugging and kissing. Mama plays games of tickle and places her hand to Vanessa's forehead when she's not feeling good, but she never scoops her up and swings her around the way Mr. De La Vega does with Usnavi. She never kisses her right on the mouth like  _both_ of his parents do. 

It had freaked her out the first time Usnavi, Benny, her, and Nina rode the public bus to school together and Mrs. De La Vega leaned down and said, "Gimme a kiss", and then Usnavi had raised his head and his mother had kissed him on the mouth and then he started talking to Benny about Power Rangers like it was perfectly normal for a kid to kiss his mother. 

Usnavi. 

Vanessa stops, wondering what the De La Vegas wound say if she showed up. They share a house with Abuela called a 'duplex'. The bottom story is Abuela's. Upstairs is where the De La Vegas live. From the outside, it looks like a small, narrow house, but the upstairs is actually fashioned with its own kitchen and living area. Usnavi doesn't actually have a bedroom. His father fashioned some space with plywood, but he decorates it anyway like walls. He's one of those kids that likes to show everyone everything he owns in his bedroom. 

Vanessa decides to chance it. She has her own key to Abuela's door-not just her either. Nina has a key, Benny, Usnavi...Mama told her because Abuela never had kids of her own, she loves the neighborhood kids like grandchildren. 

\--

It's dark and Abuela's porch light isn't on because of the blackout. Vanessa unlocks the door and creeps inside. The door shuts loudly behind her because it's so old that you kind of have to push it up and then close and lock it. The floor creaks beneath her feet. She knows she won't wake Abuela up. The kids can run wild in the house and she'll never stir while taking a nap. She sleeps with her door closed and earplugs and when the power is working, about three box fans blowing on her. 

Vanessa pads upstairs and luckily, Usnavi's parents have their bedroom door closed. She tiptoes over to his 'room' and steps underneath the heavy curtain that acts his door. He keeps saying his dad will put a real door there-they just haven't had the time, not with the store and watching Baby Sonny on the weekends. 

"Usnavi?" She whispers loudly, already feeling a little safer seeing him in bed. He sleeps on a futon so it can turn into a sofa during the day and a bed at night. He's kicked the comforter off and the sheets are coming off of the mattress.

"Navi!" She tries again, covering her mouth.

Usnavi stirs slightly and says something about race cars. Vanessa bites her bottom lip and sets her bulky flashlight down before crawling over him, wanting to lie down because she's so tired but afraid of what he'll say or do if he wakes up with an extra person in his bed. He's wearing just a t-shirt and underwear and she wonders if he wakes up if he'll be embarrassed.

Once, when they were all really small, Nina and Vanessa and Usnavi got into Abuela's fabric dye and got stained blue. She'd stripped them all in the bathroom and scrubbed them down. They hadn't cared then because they were all too busy crying about what their parents might do to them, but now that Vanessa was in the fourth grade, underwear was a pretty private thing. She'd already had to watch a video at school about periods and armpit hair. She didn't know much about any of that because she was still shapeless and hairless, but she knows it wasn't normal for them to see each other in their underwear anymore.  

Usnavi stirs again and seems to notice an extra person as he rolls over violently, bumping into Vanessa. He opens his eyes, blinking heavily and then sits up.

"VANESSA?" He hisses, tugging his shirt down. 

"Nice Ninja Turtle underwear," she says, trying to play it off, like she's not the one who should be embarrassed.

"Why are you in my bed?" He squeaks. 

"There's a blackout and some mean, big hairy guy trying to break into my apartment," she says. She almost mentions the ghosts, but stops herself. 

Usnavi still looks like he's not quite sure if he's dreaming or not.

"But why are you  _here_?" He asks again. 

"Nina's dad would throw me out," she huffs. "What? You want me to go to Benny's? I'll go to Benny's!"

"No, it's..." he rubs at his eyes. "It's fine. _Esta bien."_

Vanessa shifts uncomfortably. Usnavi gets up and pulls a pair of sweat pants from his dresser drawer and tugs them on over his briefs. He sits back down on the bed, like it's her bed and he's unsure if he should be there instead of the other way around.

"I'm sorry you're scared," he says.

"I ain't scared!" She snaps. "I'm in danger! There's a difference!"

"Oh." Is all he says. 

He lays down, a little timidly, and Vanessa does the same. They're silent for several minutes. 

"Are you sure you're okay with me sleeping here?" She asks.

"Yeah," he says, and her heart swells a little. He sounds so surprised, like he can't believe she'd ask that. 

He starts to thump one heel against his mattress and drum on his stomach through his shirt. He bites his bottom lip.

"I, um..." he says. "I'm awake now."

"You're what?" Vanessa frowns.

"Sometimes when I get woke up, I get all wiggly. It's like I wanna run laps, but my eyes are still tired."

"That's weird."

"Yeah." He starts thumping two feet now. He scratches at his arms. 

"My mom's at work," she says, unsure of what else to say. She has no idea how to respond to what Usnavi just said.

" _Esta Sola_?" Usnavi asks quietly. 

Vanessa hears him, but she doesn't respond. He turns his head and repeats himself in English.

"Are you lonely?" He asks.

Vanessa turns away from him, tears clouding her vision. She  _hates_ crying in front of others. Even Nina. Even her own mother, but he's not wrong. Vanessa's lonely. It's not just tonight with the ghost movie. It's every night her mother goes to work after dinner and sleeps a lot of the day time and Vanessa only gets to see her on her off days or as she's getting ready. Nina's great, Vanessa loves Nina, but the Rosarios make her jealous. They fawn over Nina and worry about her. When Vanessa took an overnight trip with that one church group a few years ago, her mother never once called to ask how it was going like all of those other parents. She didn't chaperone field trips or play room mother. It just wasn't her, but still. Vanessa had no brothers or sisters. She barely had a dad. 

"Vanessa?" He asks softly.

Vanessa wipes at her eyes and curls up into a ball. 

"Sometimes I hate my mom," she says, letting out a long, shuddering sigh. "And sometimes I hate Nina. And you too. You're not lonely."

"Sometimes I am," Usnavi says.

Vanessa blinks. Usnavi? Lonely? Practically attached to Benny at the hip or getting kissed and cuddled by his Mama and Pai? Or doted on by Abuela. It's no secret that he's the favorite, and not just because he lives upstairs. 

"I have those special classes," he says. "And the teachers don't care about me. Not this year, not last year. A teacher grabbed my hand a few days ago."

"What?" Vanessa sits up, forgetting about her wet eyes. 

"I got nervous because he's really mean and always tellin' us that we're lazy or not trying because we don't care and I  _do_ care. I care so hard that my brain feels like it's gonna explode. I try really hard now, but he made me nervous because he was sitting at my desk with me and tellin' me that I'm too old to write with my fist and I'm too noisy and he wouldn't leave and so my feet started movin' and my hands and he grabbed me-like this-" he took hold of his own wrist. 

Vanessa frowns.

"And he said 'STOP IT' in a really mad voice," Usnavi says quietly. "I started shakin', but Ash, another kid in that class, says that John told him that Felipe told some other guy that Mr. Larson one time hit a kid. I don't want him to hit me."

"Did you tell your Mama and Pai?" She asks.

Usnavi shakes his head, drumming again, staring up at the ceiling.

"My progress reports are better," he says. "And I think that makes them happy."

He sighs and takes his wrist again with his other hand. 

"But I feel lonely because I can't talk to nobody about it."

"You can talk to me," Vanessa says. "I'm good at listenin', I think. But if I see Mr. Larson, I'm gonna throw something at him."

Usnavi grins at her. She grins back. She stretches out beside him on her side. 

"Vanessa?" His voice is so little that Vanessa wants to hold his hand, but she doesn't.

"Mmhmm?"

"If I tell you something?" He asks. "Do you promise not to tell anybody? Ever?"

Vanessa spits in her hand and holds it out. Usnavi makes a face, but he's smiling and he claps her hand, gripping it tight before letting go and rubbing it on his pajama pants. 

"That room is so lonely that I started crying in class two times," he says. 

"What did Mr. Larson say?" She asks.

"One of the times, he wasn't there. It was Ms. Ballard. She's nice. She got me a cup of water."

"But he was there the other time?"

"I don't like people grabbing my hands," Usnavi says quietly. "I hate 'quiet hands'."

The conversation shifts to other parts of school and the playground and Baby Sonny who is actually a toddler now and Abuela has to put things up high because he grabs at everything. Usnavi talks about Halloween and Hanukkah. He's the only kid in the Heights that's Jewish, and his family does put up a tree in the Bodega so he doesn't feel too left out. Also, Abuela gives him Christmas gifts. Vanessa doesn't care about Christmas because Mama's almost always working on Christmas and sometimes she has to visit Dad in Chicago which she hates because his new wife and her daughter don't like Vanessa much, and Vanessa doesn't like them either. Vanessa does like Halloween, though, so they talk about Halloween and then she tells him about the scary movie. He wants the whole story so she tells him the plot-start to finish-skipping the parts where she was in the bathroom or putting jam on her toast for dinner. 

"Mama and Pai won't let me watch scary movies," he says, sighing sadly. "Benny does. At his house."

"Nina's not allowed either," Vanessa says.

They start to slur, both of them, and Vanessa finds herself scared of the ghosts again, and she doesn't even notice she's snuggling up to  Usnavi until he wraps the comforter around both of them.

"Thanks for letting me stay," she says, drifting.

Usnavi is already asleep. In her half awake haze, Vanessa decides that maybe Mrs. Rosario was right. Maybe some men are good and love women for a long time. Vanessa smiles a little, entangling her legs with Usnavi's just like she does with Mama when she wants to wake up when Mama does. 

\----

Vanessa doesn't wake up when Usnavi does because she wakes up alone. She wonders what to do. Surely Usnavi's parents and Abuela are awake now. How does she make her escape? Usnavi probably didn't tell them she sneaked in and spent the night and he'll be in just as much trouble as she is if she just walks into the apartment. She stays on the bed, bored out of her mind, playing with her long, tangled hair. She gets up and goes through Usnavi's things-a busted guitar in the corner, collectibles on top of his dresser, photographs of Sonny on the plywood wall with pushpins. She grows more bored by the second. Usnavi's room is so small you can circle the whole thing (if you don't count climbing over his bed) in about three paces.

" _Buenos Dias,"_ Usnavi says, entering from under the heavy curtain fully dressed. He's holding a plate with breakfast tacos and a paper cup filled with hot coffee. 

He sits down on the bed and puts the plate down beside him. Vanessa sits down too. He gestures at the plate. She takes a taco and peels back the silver foil and parchment paper. She starts to take the coffee.

"Oh, that's-" Usnavi says, but then he shakes his head. "Go ahead."

"Is it yours?" She asks.

He shrugs. "I don't care."

Vanessa takes a drink. 

"How do I sneak back out?" She asks.

Usnavi's brows furrow. "Sneak out?"

"So your parents don't see me," she says, and then adds, "Duh."

"They already know you're here," Usnavi says slowly, like Vanessa should have known too.

"What?"

"Pai said he heard us talkin' last night. He was wonderin' why you was here, but when he came to check, we was asleep already."

Vanessa doesn't know why exactly, but her face heats up. The thought of Usnavi's dad checking up on him and finding an extra kid in the bed and them both asleep...and OH GOD. She was octapus-wrapped around him like sh did Mama! How humiliating! 

She takes another sip of coffee.

"You won't tell Benny?" She asks carefully.

Usnavi winces slightly.

"I'm bad at keeping secrets," he admits. 

Vanessa decides it's okay if Benny knows. Who's Benny gonna tell anyway? Nina? 

"But you won't tell him about..." she doesn't want to say it out loud. 

'Me crying'.

Usnavi makes a criss-cross motion across his shirt. Vanessa smiles a little and gets more comfortable on the bed, sitting cross-legged. 

"It's almost seven," he says softly, knowing her mom will be home soon. "Want me to walk you home? We can talk about stuff again."

"I did like that," Vanessa says. "Talkin' bout stuff with you."

"Me too," Usnavi says. "And we can step on pinecones. I like those big, fat dry ones that are crunchy. Just...stepping on them!"

Vanessa laughs a little. "Okay."

\---------

Years later, it's cold out and Usnavi is being Usnavi deliberately using his foot to feel around for fat, dry pinecones as they head back to his apartment. He's slowing them down and it's starting to sleet.

"Okay, Mr. Radar Feet," Vanessa says. "Enough."

He pulls her in for a kiss and then says, "There's one!"

After there are no more to crunch, they continue to walk in silence, hand in hand.

"Remember that time you snuck into my bedroom when we were little and saw me in my underwear?" He asks suddenly. "You were crying about something?"

"No," Vanessa says, but her face is heating up.

After several minutes, already in front of his building, she says, "Yeah, okay. I do."

He kisses her and says, "I think that's when I decided I kind of liked you."

"Is that why you didn't send me to Benny's?"

"Nah, that was because I liked Benny more and didn't want you having a sleepover at his place without me."

"Shut up."

"Your face is shut up."

His hands are wiggly, antsy, and Vanessa brings the hand she's holding to her lips before letting it go.

"I know how you hate quiet hands," she says.

He takes her hand back.

"I know how you hate feelin' lonely," he says.

 

 


End file.
